City Mandates Trash Containers for Small Co-ops and Condos

In the city's latest offensive in its war on rats, Mayor Eric Adams announced on Monday that owners of all residential buildings with fewer than 10 units — from co-ops and condos to rentals and single-family homes — will be required to place their trash in containers with secure lids beginning Nov. 12.

For now, building owners can use any container they please, so long as it doesn’t exceed 55 gallons in size and has a lid that’s “tight-fitting,” Gothamist reports. But come June 2026, those property owners will need to buy a standardized bin from the city for their building’s refuse.

At Monday's press conference outside Gracie Mansion, Adams unveiled these wheeled "NYC Bins," which have latching lids to keep out rats, plus a metal bar on the front that will allow the city’s newly retrofitted garbage trucks to pick them up.

The city is selling the new bins for about $50, which is far cheaper than those of comparable quality in the marketplace. Building owners can order bins online at bins.nyc.

Adams said that once the rule goes into effect on Nov. 12, the city will have containerized 70% of its 14 billion pounds of annual trash. “That’s nearly 10 billion pounds of trash each year that we won’t see or smell,” Adams said, as reported by amNY. “They won’t clutter our sidewalks, they won’t ruin our days, when rats run across and out of our garbage. This is a real revolution.”

Once the rule goes into effect on Nov. 12, the city will have a warning period for building owners to transition to containers through the end of the year. It will then begin imposing fines on Jan. 2, 2025. The fines will begin at $50 for the first offense, increase to $100 for the second and then $200 for the third and each subsequent violation.

Additionally, the mayor announced earlier this year that he will launch a containerization pilot program aimed at large buildings with 31 or more units in upper Manhattan’s Community District 9 next spring. The pilot will see large stationary trash containers placed on city streets throughout the area that will be emptied into new side-loading Sanitation Department trucks.

The mandate for residential building owners to put trash in containers does not apply to recycling or compost.